hyten1

i like to hear more of everyone experience in this. i actually find working at home some what difficult. the isolation is tough. also i tend to get lazy and just end up doing the same thing over and over, because doing anything else is too difficult :) Get into a routine rout. in my past experience having a partner in whatever you do helps a lot. that trusted partner that you can chat with and bounce idea off. which i don't really have right now. come to think of it a lot successful people have that trusted 2nd half (a few come to mind, buffett -> charlie, steve jobs -> steve wozniak, bill gates -> paul/balmer etc.etc.)

here is a good place for all this info http://www.quantumonline.com/

so i guess some of you would invest in a hypothetical WEB hedge fund and immediately take a hair cut? meaning if you put $10mil into WEB HF you don't mind that WEB immediately mark what you put in at $8mil!?!? hmm i don't ever see that happen, not even with the best of managers.

quicken is the best in my experience i track everything in it (credit cards, cash, stocks, funds, real estate, loans, private investments etc. etc.) hy

i for one already have a hard time finding good ideas and just focus on that. i want to LASER FOCUS, LASER FOCUS on finding undervalue situations (i periodically scan my portfolio for things that i no longer want or believe or thesis no longer hold) it is very tempting to time markets, get out at the high, get in at the lower, but i have not been able to do this. it is very tempting to have bought the puts when market start to dive. i am not eric. also the cost of a sell is very high (that is why puts are so tempting vs outright sell). there is tax, then there is the fact you have to find something else that will make up the tax loss and its potential appreciation. this thinking has change a little bit on what i would buy, i want something that i would/could hold on a bit longer (this doesn't mean i don't invest in tempting special situations) hy EDIT: i do periodically but puts and/or sell them I'm not calling anyone crazy. But consider the fact that some of those same people who got that call right before the crisis stayed bearish after it and missed or partly missed one of the best rebounds ever. Crystal balls are rare (John Paulson's halo certainly doesn't shine the way it used to). I certainly don't have one. Every time I say that I don't know, people seem to read "I don't think anything can go wrong, the bull market will continue". That's not what I'm saying. Maybe we'll drop 20% tomorrow. But I can't invest as if that's going to be the case, because I don't know. What do you think should have happened? 15 years or bear market? A break-down of the economy, with soup queues in the streets and 20% unemployment? We've already discussed this. I find this moralistic approach (people should be punished for their excesses) not useful when it comes to investing. And it did take 5 years for the market to go back to its high water mark, so it's not like there was no pain (esp. considering the bubble's epicenter wasn't in the stock market).

i would like a personal letter/signature from him how do you guys suggest i go about getting a letter/signature from the oracle? i tried once before, i didn't get anything

all good picks for me More than you know was very interesting http://www.amazon.com/More-Than-You-Know-Unconventional/dp/0231143729/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1401807338&sr=8-2&keywords=more+than+you+know

ntdoy :)

hmm commodities, not sure if i agree, supply and demand hmm isn't that true for everything hy

would be interested in learning more about the deals he make, how profitable or not are they also maybe he can start a fund, the fund will be used to invest in these deals. hy

new york, ny

i do watch it and enjoy it very much.

GM

fyi, there are many startup in the new york city area that are in this space, doing various thing that are similar ... many they are not well known yet ... or ever will be i honestly can't recall any names, i have been to various incubator in the new york city tech scene, i have seen encounter many fashion related startups, by mail or sharing fashion or curated fashion etc. it's a giant big blur for me after seeing so many, i can't recall any :) here is one example: http://www.topshelfclothes.com/ EDIT: most likely whatever idea you have, someone else already had it, it all boils down to "implementation"

+1 also are we talking about bitcon the tech/algo behind it or the merits of bitcon as a currency. sure WEB prob is not an expert in the tech/alog (i'll bet neither is Andreessen ) but if we are talking about currency now i am sure WEB has a good deal of knowledge behind that. I dont know where people get this notion that Buffett doesn't understand technology. I am willing to bet he knows more about the economics of technology than most technology investors. That is why he stays away from "pure" technology companies. The earnings cannot be reasonably predicted as far out as Mars, Geico, or WFC. Every one of his businesses is technology intensive. The insurance industry operates on computer models, detailed climatic analysis that can only be done by supercomputers, etc. BNSF uses the latest in communication, and computing to manage its entire business. Mid-america uses switching systems, sophisticated modelling, solar power, wind power. Need I go on. Read Snowball. He was using a computer to play bridge at the dawn of the public internet. He was using a cell phone to negotiate the LTCM deal in 1998, before most of us had one. In Lowenstein he was criticized for not bringing out a Cd version of world book encyclopedia. Probably the proper decision, for the wrong reasons given the advent of wikipedia which killed the paid encyclopedia business. Rest assured he understands technology.

i think some people would consider me cheap, but i see it as getting my moneys worth also i have realize over time with the power of diminishing returns there are only so much you can save. time is better spent (pass a point) thinking of how to make more money. hy

+1 I like

zarley, not trying to disagree just pointing a few different perspective. sometimes investing full time is not just about earning more, even if you earn the same, some people enjoy it. its just like job A vs job B, a and b might be 2 completely different profession/job and they might make the same amount of money but obviously some folks would prefer A vs B do to the job itself etc. i do share your sentiment on now vs 1999. maybe its an indication that we are a top or not, who knows. but i do worry and trying to de-risk my portfolio. but i do have to say, for me i needed a lot more time to determine if i am good or if its just luck, jury is still out (I think its prob 60% luck and 40% skill). but i guess that didn't really stop me from doing it. the way i see it, the worst case scenario is, if i hate doing this i'll go look for a job, at least i won't be always wondering what it could of been. then again i already have enough where i don't need to work, but we all know most people on this board will be bored out of their mind if they did nothing. there is always something to learn, improve, and do. EDIT: the crazy thing about luck vs skill. I think overtime i have realize this value investing thing is one of the few things you can do really well (when i say really well, i mean financially) with just little bit of skill. that might sound crazy. but comparing value investing to lets say what a doctor or even a computer programmer needs to know. doc/programmer needs to be very precise, value invest you don't. you also have the luxury of coat tailing some greats. which you can't do that if you are a doctor or programmer. but don't get me wrong there are different skill involve and things you need to know etc. jmho Congrats Ben. I've followed boards you've been active on for quite a while and have always been impressed by the quality of your thinking. Good luck to you. Like many here, I've considered a similar path, but at this point haven't followed it. I'm not at all certain that investing as a full-time endeavor would be better for me financially than working full-time and investing as a hobby. Investing part time over the last 6-7 years I've managed to beat the VFINX by 2-3% per year. A balanced asset allocation leading into 2008, good timing on SHLD and BRK, and buying lots of WDC in 2011 account for most of the outperformance. I'm quite pleased with that result, but I'm not sure if that would have been +5% or more per year if I was doing it full time. Honestly, I doubt it. Plus, having OPM to deal with may have changed my perspective on risk taking (I'm already rather conservative) and left me with much more pedestrian results. I'd have a hard time charging x% of assets if I'm not doing much better than the index. Barring economic catastrophe or serious health issues for my family, my status quo trajectory is quite good. Sure, I'd rather quit my job and spend my days reading and researching stocks, but it's not clear that I'd improve my lot much, if at all. One final observation (directed at no one in particular): this thread reminds me quite a lot of the cubicle conversations I'd hear back in 1999. Everyone was just one more good year on the NASDAQ away from retiring early. This is a savvier group of investors, but the sentiment doesn't seem all that different.

i too decided to concentrate on investing full time starting in 2011. it actually came about unplanned. In 2010 i co-founded a tech company worked on it for 1 year and decide this is not what i wanted to do. the time commitment and my enthusiasm for the business just wasn't there. so the company and i parted ways (amicability, i am still a minority shareholder and get involve from time to time). so when i left i decided to give this investing a try. I actually started investing part time in 2003. for me the hardest part is getting use to being alone a lot. i do have to proactively seek out others and try to establish a network of like minded folks which isn't always easy most people don't invest full-time before they are 40. the amount of free time have given me the chance to learn other things as well as improve on my deficiency in many areas. hy

also there are many jobs that comes with a urban setting (services folks, store clerks, janitors, window washers, gardener, trashman etc. etc.) Something similar occurred in England during the Industrial Revolution. Changing technologies and practices in the agriculture sector freed up significant labour that migrated to towns and cities to fuel the IR. The scale of agriculture in China would suggest that there will be ample opportunity for the agriculture sector to shed labour over coming years. SJ They need city jobs to afford housing. Unless the city parks are large enough for their tents. But what jobs? I get the fact that the past migrants to the cities took factory jobs -- all that stuff at Walmart is made in China. But have we saturated the demand for Chinese factory labor? Is there untapped demand for manufactured goods from China? That's the wrong way to think about it. It's not that the cities are demanding labour; rather the countryside is shedding agricultural labour. This has occurred steadily since the discovery of agriculture in Mesopotamia, but accelerated during the industrial revolution. And, that's what is going on in the developing world. The adoption of technology will force people to urbanize, and that is what will generate wealth (as it always has). SJ I understood your point about needing less bodies in the fields (shedding agricultural labor). I am wondering do they become unemployed or what do they do next? I remember 10 years ago it was clearly cheaper to manufacture many goods in China. But today I believe the costs gaps are much slimmer, and energy is cheaper in the US. We're even spinning yarn in the US again. Tesla decided it was cheaper to do some of it's manufacturing in California of all places, rather than China. So I'm just wondering how that all impacts the "For Hire" signs in Chinese cities. Merely a slowing of manufacturing growth should leave an impact on the rate at which people will take up jobs in Chinese cities. Anyways, I'm not firmly arguing these points. Rather, these are the areas I'm confused about and I want somebody to explain why 250 million people will find city jobs -- what jobs are the Chinese cities currently trying to fill that these people are skilled for? Are we still in a transitional phase where China is growing it's factory labor force at the same pace as the last five-ten years? Like in the United States -- if somebody is no longer needed on a farm, it doesn't mean that for certain he is going to get a job in a city. It could just mean that he is unemployed, right?

question are these net values? we all know new things get added, but some old property get taken out or re-purpose, just wondering hy By commercial buildings, doesn't that include retail/industrial? Still, this is 50 sq ft of commercial buildings per Chinese person added since 2008. The US has total commercial building sq ft per person of 242. The US has added ~ 24 sq ft of commercial buildings per person since 2003. i.e. 1) China has added twice as much per person over half as much time, and 2) the US includes a major boom period (2003-2008) while China is just over the subsequent bust period.

+1 eric, haha this is what i do as well

wellmont you are probably right, but this is much bigger issue/problem not just for whatsapp, its the entire industry, this will affect everyone and many people with deep pockets are fighting it. hy

good points, but how do you compete with $1/yr or $2 or $3/yr ? more functionality? i would think whatsapp has the edge in that, their foundation is base of the internet, much more flexible than some sms network/system. hy Good idea. Or what happens when major telecom companies introduce a more functional message format and lower their prices? They make billions of profit from text messages - they have the most incentive to compete and stop the growth of proprietary alternative message services.

also in regards to no profit now but profit later i do have to say, its not in my nature to think like that or put it another ways sometimes, maybe sometimes certain business need to built a base before profit, i know we value investors don't like that. i guess FB is a good example of that, would FB be FB if they started to charge/ads right from the start? maybe. i am not saying or do i invest in biz with potential like fb or whatsapp. i am just pointing out that sometimes "no profit now but profit later" is the right way. now i have no idea when that is, nor are the odds great in my opinion, or do i invest like that.